Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A handle or projection used as a hold or support.
  • noun A lug nut.
  • noun Nautical A lugsail.
  • noun A projecting part of a larger piece that helps to provide traction, as on a tire or the sole of a boot.
  • noun A copper or brass fitting to which electrical wires can be soldered or otherwise connected.
  • noun Slang A clumsy fool; a blockhead.
  • intransitive verb To drag or haul (an object) laboriously.
  • intransitive verb To pull or drag with short jerks.
  • intransitive verb To cause (an engine, for example) to run poorly or hesitate.
  • intransitive verb To pull something with difficulty; tug.
  • intransitive verb To move along by jerks or as if under a heavy burden.
  • intransitive verb To run poorly or hesitate because of strain. Used of an engine.
  • noun The act of lugging.
  • noun Something lugged.
  • noun A box for shipping fruit or vegetables.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Anything that moves slowly or with difficulty; something of a heavy, lumpish, or sluggish nature.
  • noun Same as lug-sail.
  • noun plural Affected manners; “airs”: as, to put on lugs.
  • noun The lobe of the ear.
  • noun The ear.
  • noun A projecting part of some object resembling more or less in form or position the human ear.
  • noun In machinery, a projecting piece; specifically, a short flange by or to which something is fastened.
  • noun A projecting piece upon a founders' flask or mold.
  • noun In single harness, one of the two loops of leather dependent from the saddle, one on each side, through which the shafts are passed for support.
  • noun The arm of a bee-frame.
  • noun A jamb or side wall of a recess, as a fireplace.
  • noun A grade of tobacco.
  • To pull with force or effort, as something that is heavy or resists; haul; drag.
  • To carry, as something heavy or burdensome; bear laboriously.
  • Especially To drag or pull about by the ears or head, as a bear or a bull, to excite it to action; bait; worry.
  • To geld.
  • To pull with effort: followed by at.
  • To move heavily, or with resistance; drag.
  • To form with a lug or projection: as, to lug a door-sill (that is, to hollow out or chamfer off the upper and outer angle of the stone to within a short distance of each end, the parts not cut away forming the lugs).
  • noun A rod or pole.
  • noun A pliable rod or twig such as is used in thatching.
  • noun A measure of length, properly 15 feet 1 inch, but sometimes 16½, 18, or 20 feet (a lug of coppicewood in Herefordshire was 49 square yards); a pole or perch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun colloq. The act of lugging; ; that which is lugged.
  • noun obsolete Anything which moves slowly.
  • intransitive verb To pull with force; to haul; to drag along; to carry with difficulty, as something heavy or cumbersome.
  • intransitive verb To move slowly and heavily.
  • noun Prov. Eng. A rod or pole.
  • noun obsolete A measure of length, being 161/2 feet; a rod, pole, or perch.
  • noun [Local, U.S.] a pole on which a kettle is hung over the fire, either in a chimney or in the open air.
  • noun Scot. & Prov. Eng. The ear, or its lobe.
  • noun That which projects like an ear, esp. that by which anything is supported, carried, or grasped, or to which a support is fastened; an ear
  • noun (Mach.) A projecting piece to which anything, as a rod, is attached, or against which anything, as a wedge or key, bears, or through which a bolt passes, etc.
  • noun (Harness) The leather loop or ear by which a shaft is held up.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English lugge, earflap, probably of Scandinavian origin.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English luggen, of Scandinavian origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably from Old Norse (compare Swedish lugga, Norwegian lugge). Noun is via Scots lugge, probably from Old Norse (compare Swedish and Norwegian lugg). Probably related to slug ("lazy, slow-moving"), which is from similar Scandinavian sources.

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Examples

  • On the T3, the recoil lug is permanently embedded in the stock, with just its upper edge showing, and this edge fits into a groove on the receiver.

    Almost Perfect 2003

  • Seasonal helpers who sign up in the tasting room at River Ridge pick grapes by hand on the six-acre vineyard and place them into a "lug" -- a tub that holds 22 to 24 pounds of grapes.

    seMissourian.com Headlines 2010

  • Someone without experience could easily touch a ground wire to a main lug.

    Projects You Shouldn’t Try To DIY | Lifehacker Australia 2009

  • NGUYEN: At first, except this chug a lug was a middle school class and the students were drinking milk.

    CNN Transcript Jan 12, 2008 2008

  • Gibcrokes and recons were local and less frequent names, and the folks who in their dialect called the lug-pole a gallows-balke called the pothooks gallows-crooks.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • -- Gibbie nodded and she resumed: -- "But gien ye wad tak a lug o 'a Fin'on haddie wi' me at nine o'clock, I wad be prood."

    Sir Gibbie George MacDonald 1864

  • The best kind of sail is the lug, which is an elongated square sail -- shown in the accompanying illustration.

    Man on the Ocean A Book about Boats and Ships R. [Illustrator] Richardson 1859

  • "lug" -- the clover and other green things cut with the crop that make it so rich a food for the cattle -- showing through the stems here and there.

    Secret Bread F. Tennyson Jesse

  • The inflammable catted chimney of logs and clay, hurriedly and readily built by the first settlers, soon gave place in all houses to vast chimneys of stone, built with projecting inner ledges, on which rested a bar about six or seven or even eight feet from the floor, called a lug-pole (lug meaning to carry) or a back-bar; this was made of green wood, and thus charred slowly -- but it charred surely in the generous flames of the great chimney heart.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • Gift certificates for Luggage Forward, a baggage delivery service that takes your bags from doorstep to destination, virtually taking out the "lug" out of luggage; Herbasway Spa and Beauty, a collection of tea and fruit concentrates designed to support your health including anti-aging, fat-burning, detoxing and skin support among others; R.E.U.S.E. jeans, made from recycled textile waste; Marley Coffee, founded by Rohan Marley in honor of his later father, Bob Marley.

    Zorianna Kit: The 2010 Golden Globe Gifting Suites 2010

Comments

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  • Scots - handle.

    December 10, 2007

  • Wow--a god! See also discussion on hasbian.

    May 3, 2009

  • "Scottish or informal - a person's ear." (Definition on Mac dictionary)

    March 18, 2011